Thursday, February 1, 2007

Post 3 - You Tube

“Hey guys you know it’s funny people they go to sleep, they think everything’s fine everything’s good they wake up the next day and their on fire.”

This is what the GI Joe Fire Fighter tells the adolescents. This is the conclusion and the focal point of the video. The video is very short, about thirty seconds long, and to the point. The point is simply to make the viewer laugh. The video is not trying to relay some important message about fire safety, but just trying to make the viewers laugh. If one watches other GI Joe videos on You Tube, they will see that most of them are put together with random sayings and nonsense, which a lot of the times do not make any sense. They are not intended to make any sense, but straightforwardly entertain the viewer. I have seen this video a number of times before. In order for one to understand why I chose this video out of thousands, maybe millions of videos from You Tube, one must learn a little bit about my background.

In 2004 I joined the Army National Guard and had to go through nine intense weeks of Basic Combat Training and fifteen weeks of job training. The fifteen weeks of job training was to go through the Fire Academy for the Army National Guard. So, the job that I am privileged to have in the Army National Guard is Fire Fighting. During my job training, which took place in Good Fellow Air Force Base in San Angelo Texas, was the very first time ever that I saw this video. The Fire Academy had a lot of outside, hands on training, but there were a few times that there was strict classroom lecture type training. During these times the Fire Instructor would always start or end the class session with silly, humorous videos in order to break the ice among the class mates. One of those videos, which was played multiple times was the video used in this post. The video became one of my favorite videos that I ever watched during my time at the Fire Academy.

The content of this video would be completely different if observed on Television or any other sort of media device outside of the Internet. The reason for this is because on television GI Joe is an action packed, non stop action cartoon that is focused on capturing the attention of younger kids. I am not quite sure if GI Joe is still around, but when I used to be a kid, it was definitely one of my favorite cartoons. GI Joe definitely captured my attention as a child, and continues to capture my attention as an adult. The content of GI Joe on television was designed to entertain the audience through action, and on the Internet it is designed to entertain the audience through humor.

I recommend that when one watches the video on this post that they watch it more than just one time. It seems that the more one watches the video the funnier it gets. For example, when I first showed my wife the video she thought it was one of the most dumb and stupid videos ever. She did not understand why I thought it was so funny. I encouraged her to watch it multiple times, and she did. The more she watched it, the funnier she thought it was. So once again, I recommend that one watches the video more than once to catch the humor in it.

5 comments:

annaters said...

Okay...

That was one of the strangest video's I have ever seen. However, I admit I did watch it more than once. I think that it caught me off guard a bit. I like the insight GI Joe gives on people who end up with their house on fire. I'm not sure that I would have thought about a situation of that nature in that way on my own. I'm looking forward to reading your post about this video, I hope it will help me clarify the meaning of it. Currently I am not so sure that I understand it completely.

Looking forward to your insight on the clip!

@km said...

Hey so is this your assignment 3? then, where is the text that you wrote about the video? Or is that it? It was fun and kind of made sense. I liked how it was sweet and short to the point. Though I am not sure what the point is. Don't push the fire alarm unless there is a fire, but there was a fire. What made you choose this video? That was definitley an odd video, why did the fireman talk all robot like and his point he ended on about people waking up on fire? lol confusing? once you write a blog on it maybe it will be a little bit more understandable but hey it was entertaining.

Analisa said...

This clip is somewhat entertaining; however, I am of the opinion that it was altered by someone, as ebaumsworld.com is plastered across the bottom of the video. I think that most things on ebaumsworld are altered to be funny or to make a statement, but who knows… stranger things have been aired. It kind of reminds me of the smoky the bear commercials and all the commercials that are aired to promote safety. They seem corny, and do they really do what they are supposed to do? Who really listens to such meaningless stuff? I laugh at the videos that are supposed to be delivering an important message… so maybe someone needs to step in and change the way these “safety” videos are done.

nathanbos said...

Great video! I love humor like this; it doesn’t really have a point and is pretty random. Hence, Family Guy is one of my favorite shows. Anyways, I thought your blog was very well written and explained the reason for the video very well. I think a lot of times people look for too much reason in videos like this. I found it very interesting about your own history, and thought it was great that you explained how this video pertains to you personally. I enjoyed reading the whole post and enjoyed the video a lot.

Liz Benton said...

My boyfriend is a member of the Army National Guard, so it was interesting to hear from someone else who was also a member. My boyfriend is currently at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio, Texas- I guess a lot of the job training takes place in Texas that is what my boyfriend is there for now. It was a rather entertaining video and it did make me laugh and I agree that it does little to convey anything about true fire safety. I got a decent laugh when the GI gave his insight on people that end up in their house when it is on fire… I think it’s good that your teacher at training provided you with entertainment throughout your training.